New England B.S. Thread

Petty ? I'll give you petty...Friend had a new house built with septic so leach field piping. Health district a-hole does an inspection prior to it being covered. Made the contractor redo all the piping because some of the pipe labeling wasn't facing directly upward. Give some people a little power and....

 

Everything I did was replace in kind - the dishwasher had all the hookups there already just rusted shut, since the PO's took out a dishwasher in favor of a cabinet box (I guess....), and a hose bib that was copper that froze and burst - replaced with pex

That blows. I have to drain and flush my tank soon - looks like Monday will be warm enough to do it.

When we bought we pulled all building permits, I think it was like 20$ at the town hall, that's pretty standard. If things are SKETCHY I would just walk away, but if they're on the up and up, cool. Inspector might just go out of curiosity.

(Ours had an addition, and an oil tank pulled out, and a third permit I think, can't remember, probably for the electric when they pulled knob and tube, but I couldn't tell you off the cuff)

Our house is built in '55, and we have a 2.625% mortgage. There's a bigger chance we level the damn thing and rebuild before we sell it, but there is always the chance of moving south because the cold sucks.

At that point yeah I'm pulling permits. But replacing existing circuits/fixtures/piping with similar-to runs, nah. (Except gas since I'd farm that out anyway, and am considering a potential to run the NG out to the grill.... )

 

Mine was a month ago. I had an electric 40 gallon and replaced it with a hybrid 50 gallon. A months' electric bill dropped about 300 kwh - that amounts to $73/month savings. MassSave/National Grid has a $750 instant rebate on them.

Sure, it's a little noisy and the heat pump takes much longer to recover than the electric elements (though it will turn those on if it notices high demand), but I'll take that savings!

I am about $2000 in all said and done after my plumber friend from work's labor, a bunch of new copper and propress fittings since we moved it from where it was, and a condensate pump. So, it'll pay for itself just after the two year mark.

They also dehumidify the space they're in to some extent. If the dehumidifier in the basement runs less as a result, that's more savings. I'm excited to find out this summer.

 

Not going to Moosehead this year.

we’re going to another smaller lake (warm water) for pike.

hopefully this spell of warm winters fades.

 

Rural vt. What permits? Inspectors? That's for big cities like Burlington. For better or worse lol.

 

That's pretty cool. Our house was built in 1967. The original owners connected to town sewer and converted it from fuses to circuit breakers at some point. We've kept up the maintenance and as I mentioned added a second basement (finally).

We're planning a move in part because I hate the cold and in part I expect that our daughter will be getting married and having kids soon. She lives in Texas, so that's where we want to settle as well. There comes in point where people need family support and both of our kids live in the south.

 

Mine is gas. I like having gas because it still works when the power goes out. I’ll replace it myself as long as I can get the same or similar unit with the gas connection in the same spot.

 

Ah, I don't think there's any gas in the town. Definitely not within miles of me but maybe a few houses on the outskirts have access.

I remember a few years ago the school looked at converting to gas when replacing their boilers. The gas company quoted something like a half million dollars to extend the gas line that far so they went with oil again.

 

They're fine as long as they're installed properly. Commercially, they avoid the need for a fire watch also, which can save a lot of money.

 

Getting my pool installed, my electrician prepped me on what/where to dig for the electric. He came and ran stuff and said "don't put ANY dirt back until you're fully signed off". Electrical inspector comes down and says he needs to call my electrician..tells him to ground the water in the skimmer. OK gets done.

Comes down, calls him again, have to trench around and double wrap in copper, hit 4 stanchions. He already knew that wasn't done the first time but whatever, I just do it.

Comes down, calls him AGAIN about some other minor thing he knew about all along. WTF? Fortunately that was the last of it

 

When I moved here from central MA I inquired at the town clerk about any permits necessary to do some work on the house. The reply I got back amounted to "If you aren't changing the size of the envelope, you can pretty much do as you'd like." My mind nearly exploded.

 

Hopefully I will have it running by next weekend.

 

One realtor I talked to a while ago said the magic phrase is "it was like that when I bought it". Any work I have done in this house is purely replacing Sheetrock and painting

 

How exciting! Nice work - dang, now I want one.

 

My house is / was a mess.

If I was going to stay forever, I'd run through it, but I don't think that's in the cards. My HVAC is a mess, my plumbing is a mess, my electrical is better than when it started, but still kinda a mess. I'm of a "if I'm in there, I'll fix it" but I don't necessarily need to re-invent the wheel either. I hate the physical location of my house, not necessarily the area.

I still shake my head that when I moved in there was no door between the garage and house. I added one but it required a bunch of rework on the roof of the garage to do it.

 

Wow! Isn't that actually illegal? Fire codes and such!

 

That's one of the biggest things to be aware of if you're renovating an house. Most older homes will have some, or many, things that are not in compliance with current code. If the renovations proposed are extensive enough, you could end up having to bring the whole structure up to meet current code. It may be illegal based on current code, but if it was built before that particular section of the code was written, it's grandfathered in.

 

That's a really good question. I have my main house (Gambrel Cape) then an add on family room and garage. The family room has a front and rear exit. The garage is a standard 24 x 26 two car unit with a rear exit door. The wall between the house and garage is fire rated, so I don't know. I just thought it was crazy. When they built the garage the top plate of the family room wall was actually low for whatever reason so the tallest door without cutting out the top plate would be 5-8. So I had to have it re-do to increase the top plate height.

 

Alot of people struggle with understanding this. In the basement of by late 1700 cape there is full pine trees(bark still on) ~10" in diameter acting as joists for the first floor and everyone asks if its up to code. Codes didnt exist when the house was built...

 

Codes? Codes? We don't need no stinkin' codes man!

That's also why we see a lot of houses that are gutted to the studs or partially torn down. One in Canton had everything but the doorway removed. It was then "remodeled" into a house with twice the footprint of the original. It only has to meet the codes, if any, in effect at the time it was built.